Ah, I meant patch/parameter changes are only made to the region with the illuminated light.
It also had the double button to i.e. change the pad quickly and easily behind your piano sound:

miditime wrote:
Presently, in 2017 to do a live performance of this, you need to go deep into the screen to set the split points / transpositions, and unless you've spent a bit of time programming this before a performance, doing it on the fly generally results in the player being distracted from the performance in order to go deep into the screen, something that used to be very simple live.

Setting split points on the Montage is actually a matter of seconds and doesn't require any deep diving into submenus. It is right on the surface. You may take a look into the manual or watch a video on youtube.
Regarding those dual combinations with the same sound in the left part...well, I for example never needed something like that. I believe there are even some keyboards offering this these days. But I guess you don't need 100 sounds on the left side. You can preprogram at home those 10 or 20 combinations and put them into the liveset mode. There each performance is one button press away. This is certainly the faster way with less distraction instead of hunting for the desired patch where you have 1600 and more to chose from.

Personally, I prefer to organize and create my needed setups at home. That gives me the freedom on stage to focus on performance instead of searching for the needed sounds.

Features I wonder why I don't see on the Montage?

Perhaps, you are looking in the wrong place... is the answer.

You can set the split point by touching a button and inputting the Note data via the keyboard right on the PERFORMANCE (HOME) screen. If you turn the clock back 35 years to when the OB8 allowed you to play two sounds at once, necessarily the function was easy as you describe.

But present day you have far more capability so, necessarily it is a little bit more complex. We no longer call it a “split point” (unless only an upper and a lower region are involved)... current day synths like MONTAGE refer to it in terms of Note Limit regions (Range) because often you can define far more than two regions.

On a deeper level, of course...
Each oscillator (called Elements on the AWM2 Sample side) can have its own Note Limit, and Velocity Limit region. Then on a higher level of the architecture each PART (whether AWM2 or FM-X) can have its own Note Limit and Velocity Limit region.

Each AWM2 PART is the equivalent of a Motif XF Voice... MONTAGE allows the programmer to use as many as eight PARTs simultaneously to build a playable sound, and as many as 16 in a single Performance.

When playing sounds simultaneously, you simply start from the HOME screen
select the PART using the dedicated [PART SELECT] button.
Touch the “RANGE” box of the Part... it has a Low Limit box, and a High Limit box
A pop-in box with the word “Keyboard” appears... Touch it, green is active
Touch the Key on the keyboard to enter the data.
Rinse and repeat...
“Snorkelers” never have to leave the HOME screen
“Scuba divers” can dig down deep and even create single Parts that are themselves splits.

If you wish to return to the days where a dedicated split button divides the keyboard into upper and lower (Split) you should limit your purchases to keyboard capable of just two sounds simultaneously... Stage pianos like the CP40 Stage, P115, etc. there are certainly plenty of keyboards that built and designed for on-the-fly operation, as you remember. They are not necessarily going to be as capable as producing as wide an array of sounds as cutting edge synths like the MONTAGE, but they still have an audience and a reason to exist, no doubt. But don’t limit the ‘cutting edge’ synths... there are folks who like “menu diving” especially if it means they can set it up EXACTLY as they require. For them, all the depth of editing is the *reason to buy!*

Please take your time, read through and execute the many tutorial found here in the “Learn” section of the site. “Performance Basics and the Live Set I & II” comes to mind immediately.... this one actually shows you how and provides an example of having a bass sound on the left while you switch between various right hand sounds. So while walking the bass with your left hand the SCENE buttons switch between your selection of right hand sounds.

If you think you can “know” what the MONTAGE can and can’t do before you get one- you are simply wrong, that’s all there is to it. How could you possibly know? You have to anticipate that many of the issues you are bringing up are not unique to you, and to assume that the engineers are not musicians too (would be a mistake)... so expect to find new ways to work... you never know, you might find it better than you thought.

Also, is Polyphonic aftertouch still too expensive to include in modern keyboards? Being able to bring out inner voicings in string arrangements, etc. on the fly would totally be a game changer in separating players from beginning pianists. Playing block string pads, where movement gets globally louder or softer via key pressure, is really not that impressive. The CS-80 was so cool!

Again, things are possible that don’t necessarily conform with thinking 40 or more years ago. When Yamaha introduced the CS80 in the late 1970s with polyphonic aftertouch... synths played a different role in the market and in the band. Frankly, they were still carving their own niche. No one expected a synth to feel like a piano... sorry that comes later...

The CS80 didn’t attempt to be a piano (there was no 88 key weighted action version, splits were not even in the lexicon quite yet) ha, the thing was 212lbs. as it was! There is no polyphonic aftertouch today primarily because of the way it makes the keyboard feel (my opinion) more than any other reason. It comes down to how much it changes the feel and how many would be using it versus the fact that use it or not, everyone would have to deal with how it made the action feel...

I don’t see a big call to separate “players from beginning pianists” but the current approach within Yamaha tech includes addressing the tone generator as in MONTAGE, where you are directly able to affect multiple Parts discreetly with your controllers (rather than placing multiple Parts on the same Receive Channel as traditional done, MONTAGE transmits independently to each Part and this makes a difference) or as in the Tyros/Genos where you have “Ensemble Voices” (where you can play four instruments “divisi” - which is not for the untrained player - you are playing four independent instruments, a string quartet would consist of first and second violin, a viola and cello, each would only play its Note in a four part piece). (This is an amazing bit of technology which is not for the casual player).

MONTAGE - you can, when addressing multiple Parts, simultaneously, have some be poly while others are mono, some can respond to AT others not, because they are separately addressed by the keyboard you can have just one Part follow aftertouch for vibrato or whatever you design. No it is not the same as polyphonic AT.

Internal voice movement is being addressed... wait till you sit and really play the 18 Element “CFX Concert” feel how it “speaks” in the low, low mid, mid, and high mid velocity ranges. Play “Seattle Sections” with an FC7 pedal plugged into FOOT CONTROLLER 2 - This will allow you to morph the full string orchestra seamlessly into a solo cello-viola-violin Part... doing so with the FC7 pedal is a compelling experience (without an FC7 you wont “get it” but once you start to see, hear and feel what we mean by “Motion Control” with that SuperKnob/FC7 combination you may change some of your thinking.

If you need to be Brass for the band you’re in, having the full power of eight Motif XFs in front of you means you have the ability to take care of tons of realistic brass articulations with a single program: Sforzando, swells, shakes, drop offs, rips, screaming high trumpets on top, etc., all available at your command in one Performance... via your controllers.

Overall, look out for *how* things have evolved. Trust (a bit) that the companies involved in making Synthesizers do so while staying involved in the market. The evolution is a result of much exhaustive research. Look for how the synthesizer market has evolved... a needle drop back to the days of the OB8 is like taking a time machine trip... no, much is not done like it used to be done. Unless you are attempting to relive that past - there is plenty of that going on. And even in that, there is significant evolution ...

And while something may seem unnecessarily complex today, that’s just because today’s market is not as *afraid of technology* as players were back in the early 80s. (By afraid, I’m talking about there were more keyboard players afraid of synthesizer back then than there are now... back then you had people saying you couldn’t express yourself on a synthesizer, you couldn’t tell real players from beginners, etc., etc.) imagine?

Bad Mister wrote:

There is no polyphonic aftertouch today primarily because of the way it makes the keyboard feel (my opinion) more than any other reason. It comes down to how much it changes the feel and how many would be using it versus the fact that use it or not, everyone would have to deal with how it made the action feel...

I agree with most of the above. However here I disagree. While I don't know about the piano action - never had one with polyphonic aftertouch - I still have an Ensoniq VFX which has polyphonic aftertouch in one of the best synthesizer keybeds I have ever played. At least there it has no influence on the feel at all, as far as I can see.

And actually my understanding is that the implementation of polyphonic aftertouch is more or less the same from the sensors, just the electronics are different. My believe as to why polyphonic aftertouch is not used so much is because it produces an enormous amount of data (well it's small by today's USB standards but enormous by MIDI standards) which could overwhelm the MIDI bandwidth.

Having said all that, for most applications channel pressure is really enough, it is for many keyboard players (including me) too difficult to distinguish individual keys, anyway. I certainly am not really missing it...

 

Cool replies.

Those splits were just examples.
For those that play the same pieces of music the same way at every performance this would would be fine.

For those who like to improvise, being able to play a bass sound with the left hand (as the bass player won't know what to play, as it's being improvised,) while playing 5 different synth sounds that trigger at various velocities on top of a piano with the right hand, maybe even sounds assigned to different zones in the right hand region - (since my 1st example was too simplistic) and then when inspired switching only the right hand to the next very complicated patch without the bass (and it's eq and efx) changing, and then to a new sound without the bass changing would be something that would attract me. Just as it's attractive that the montage does not stop playing when you change patches as it does with the Motif XF. (Ouch)

Also, to dismiss bringing out a voice within a string quartet patch (one of many examples available) with polyphonic aftertouch (i.e. the cello part all of a sudden singing out through the other parts with vibrato, and then cresc. and dim.) - seems to show the level of a players skill, listening and education, and while it's true, most people won't know the difference, I know the difference, it's a very noticeable difference, and it is far more expressive when playing - and if you don't notice the difference, it's okay. Most people can't tell if a piano is in tune. They couldn't tell you what it is, but it sounds better to them after it's been tuned. And after paying close to 6k in 1976 for a Yamaha CS-80, I would think 41 years later it would be easy to add this feature. Whether most keyboardists would want to pay the additional expense seems to be the real problem. But maybe a special limited edition model?

By the way, I was given the impression the Montage was the next gen keyboard to succeed the Motif XF. But there is no seqencer? Hmmm.

Just some thoughts - I appreciate Yamaha very much and am a huge fan of their products.

Now that I think of it, I remember when you were able to buy the CS-80 (1976) at around 6k there was the 60k GX-1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_GX-1

It was only a dream for me, but you'd see it with ELP, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder.

I wish there was company out there with that kind of vision for keyboardists these days.

It was very inspiring. Now I instead dream of owning a souped up 10k trash can-esque Mac, with lots of ssd drives. (Very cool too.)

If I want to bring out a voice in a string quartet that I performed on a keyboard, I presently have to edit it in the DAW.

Remember, aftertouch can trigger not only volume, but vibrato, etc.

Of course the road case of a CS-80 was the size of a u-haul trailer (ouch)

re: Polyphonic Aftertouch - check this video out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIkKMHwXcko

I guess I could install this on my Montage:
http://touchkeys.bulletserve.net/support/installing-touchkeys/

what could go wrong?

I was only kidding - a big part of the Montage is the great feel of the keyboard - which would no doubt vanish once the new pieces of plastic are adhered to the top of each key.

But did you watch the videos?

This guy is a real visionary.

Why is this not a Yamaha product? Yamaha could invest in this product and put them in a new keyboard, and pay the guy a small royalty, which would probably be a lot more than he's making selling such a product.

Where does the future of keyboards lie - only in new lead and pad sounds? One Yamaha Montage-ist keyboard with this design at around 6k should find a viable target audience. (With a sequencer, and a ssd drive slot please.)

The fingers are very expressive in fine keyboardists. When a finger is depressed on a key - the finger can move left to right (vibrato,) and slide further into the key bed, or press harder (volume control / trigger of other sounds, etc.)

To leave keyboard design to engineers postpones the next step of the obvious evolution of the destiny of the keyboard. And will leave most of todays keyboards in a 2 dimensional world, at least for the time being.

Also, most importantly, it will make creating music with such a keyboard a lot of fun!

Why is this not a Yamaha product?

Ha... ever hear of the GX1?

The left-right, down-up (horizontal and vertical) aftertouch was introduced on the GX1 back in the 1970s... the little 37 note mini key manual was for expressive play of your lead sound. It was ridiculously playable, way ahead...1970’s!! (Yamaha must be new to you), The company is all about that, all about innovation, all about pushing the envelop (pun intended), Seriously! All about it! Check your history... take a close look at what’s on offer right now, in MONTAGE.